This disclosure relates to a cleaning device for removing a remaining toner, and the like and an image forming apparatus including the cleaning device.
Known as a typical image forming apparatus is, for example, an electrophotographic image forming apparatus formed through five processes in which an uncharged photoconductor is uniformly charged (charging process), in which laser light based on a document copy is irradiated to a surface of the charged photoconductor to form a latent image of the document on the surface of the photoconductor (exposure process), in which the latent image is visualized with a toner (development process), in which the toner image formed through the visualization is transferred onto a recording medium such as paper loaded on an intermediate transfer belt (transfer process), and in which the transferred toner image is fixed on the recording medium (fixation process).
The toner remains on the intermediate transfer belt after the toner image has been transferred onto the recording medium, which therefore requires removal of this remaining toner before next image formation processing. Thus, various cleaning devices for removing a remaining toner in an image forming apparatus have been suggested and then put into practical use.
The cleaning device includes for example: a fur brush roller which cleans the surface of the intermediate transfer belt; a collecting roller which collects the toner adhering to the fur brush roller; a blade which abuts a circumferential surface of the collecting roller and which is provided for scraping off the toner collected by the collecting roller; and a toner storage section which temporarily stores the toner scraped off by the blade. The toner scraped off by the blade moves to the toner storage section, and the toner which has moved to the toner storage section is conveyed to one end part in the toner storage section by a conveyance screw and discharged to an outside of the cleaning device through an opening part formed at the one end part in the toner storage section.